NRDC Report Disputes Chemical Recycling: Risks, Realities, and the Ongoing Plastic Crisis
A deep dive into why leading environmental organizations call chemical recycling a false solution to the plastic pollution crisis.
Chemical recycling—touted as a breakthrough in managing plastic waste—faces mounting skepticism from environmental organizations and independent researchers. A comprehensive NRDC-backed report, joined by Beyond Plastics and other advocacy groups, presents evidence that the promise of chemical recycling is largely misleading. The findings expose technological, environmental, and social problems embedded in the industry’s approach, calling into question claims that these processes can sustainably resolve the growing plastic waste crisis in the United States.
What Is Chemical Recycling?
Chemical recycling, also known as advanced recycling or molecular recycling, refers to several industrial-scale technologies that break down used plastic into chemical components using processes such as:
- Pyrolysis: Heating plastics in the absence of oxygen to produce oils, fuels, or chemical feedstocks
- Gasification: Breaking down plastics into synthetic gas by heating at very high temperatures with limited oxygen
- Solvolysis (including methanolysis and glycolysis): Using solvents or chemicals to dissolve or depolymerize plastics
Unlike mechanical recycling—which sorts, washes, and physically processes plastics into new products without altering their chemical structure—chemical recycling involves significant thermal or chemical modification, often turning plastics into fuels or new chemical feedstocks rather than new plastic items.
The State of Chemical Recycling in the U.S.
Despite decades of hype, chemical recycling has not delivered the large-scale solution to plastic waste that its proponents suggest. According to the NRDC and corroborated by recent industry-independent investigations, as of 2023:
- Only 11 chemical recycling plants had been constructed and operated in the United States
- Of these, 3 have since closed due to technological or economic challenges
- The combined capacity of functioning plants accounts for just around 1.1% of U.S. annual plastic waste (out of 36 million tons generated annually)
- Many remaining facilities do not operate at full capacity, struggle with technical problems, or operate mostly in pilot mode
The anticipated contribution of chemical recycling is so modest that, even if all U.S. facilities worked at full capacity, they could only process a fraction of the nation’s plastic waste.
Chemical Recycling: A Closer Look at The Processes
The core technologies classified as chemical recycling include:
- Pyrolysis: The most common process, deployed at the majority of U.S. plants. It produces a crude oil-like substance often burned as fuel rather than converted into new plastics.
- Gasification: Operated by select facilities such as Eastman, it turns plastic into a synthetic gas usable for fuel or chemical production.
- Solvent-based methods (solvolysis, methanolysis, glycolysis): Less common, these break plastics into their smaller chemical building blocks, often for industrial uses rather than direct plastic recycling.
While industry marketing emphasizes the regeneration of plastic into new products, most U.S. chemical recycling plants actually focus on fuel production, sometimes marketing byproducts as feedstocks for “circular” plastic manufacturing. NRDC and supporting groups argue that this misrepresents the true environmental impact and sustainability of these operations.
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Key Findings From the NRDC and NGO Reports
Critical findings from the NRDC’s review and complementary reports include:
- Minimal contribution to plastic recycling: With a combined estimated throughput of 400,000 tons annually, chemical recycling facilities treat only about 1.1% of U.S. plastic waste.
- Predominant use for fuel, not new plastics: Most plants convert plastics into fuels or feedstocks for the petrochemical industry—not into consumer-grade, recyclable plastics.
- High cost and public subsidies: Facilities can cost up to half a billion dollars to build, frequently depending on public financing or subsidies.
- Frequent operational failures: Fires, explosions, and extended shutdowns have been documented among several facilities, undermining confidence in safety and reliability.
- Generation of hazardous wastes: Processes release persistent organic pollutants (POPs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxins, furans, and heavy metals.
The NRDC asserts that the environmental, climate, and human health impacts are systematically underestimated or, in some cases, ignored by the industry.
The Environmental and Human Health Toll
Chemical recycling, as currently implemented, poses a variety of threats:
- Hazardous Emissions: Byproducts include dioxins, furans, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and trace heavy metals—compounds linked to cancer and other chronic diseases.
- Toxic Chemical Additives: Over 16,000 chemicals are used in plastics manufacturing, of which more than 4,200 are known to be hazardous to human health or the environment. Many recycled plastics inherit these chemical additives, often rendering them unsuitable for food contact or high-quality reuse.
- Limited Product Quality: Post-consumer resins created through chemical recycling typically suffer quality limitations that restrict their use, particularly in sensitive applications such as food packaging.
- Fire and Explosion Risk: Various facilities have experienced fires and explosions, rendering them environmental hazards and risks to nearby communities.
Environmental Justice: Who Bears the Burden?
One of the most troubling aspects of chemical recycling is its impact on marginalized communities. The NRDC found:
- Eight out of eleven plants analyzed were built in lower-income neighborhoods
- Seven out of eleven are located in areas with disproportionately high populations of people of color
- Facilities often co-locate with other petrochemical plants, compounding cumulative pollution burdens
According to advocates, such siting patterns perpetuate environmental injustice—low-income and minority communities face a greater threat from hazardous emissions and accident risks associated with these facilities.
Industry Influence and Deregulation
NRDC’s report notes that industry lobbying has driven legislative efforts in at least 24 states to reclassify chemical recycling facilities as manufacturing rather than waste management. This regulatory shift:
- Reduces oversight of emissions and hazardous waste disposal
- Expands access to public funding and subsidies for chemical recycling companies
- Allows fast-tracking of facility permits in communities with limited capacity for resistance
Environmental groups argue this is a calculated effort to limit accountability and public scrutiny, while framing chemical recycling as a green innovation.
Why Doesn’t Chemical Recycling Solve the Plastic Crisis?
- Scale: The U.S. generates more than 36 million tons of plastic waste each year. Mechanical recycling still covers only 5–6% of this. Chemical recycling, given current (and even projected) capacity and reliability, is minimal by comparison.
- End Products: Most outputs are not closed-loop recycled plastics, but instead fuels or low-quality industrial feedstocks.
- Systemic Overproduction: Without reducing virgin plastic production, recycling processes—mechanical or chemical—cannot keep pace with waste generation.
- Energy and Resource Intensive: These methods frequently require substantial energy inputs and generate hazardous waste, undermining climate and sustainability claims.
- Toxic Legacy: Persistent toxic residues and chemical contamination both in the environment and the resulting recycled product limit market viability and safe reuse.
Policy Responses and Community Action
Recognizing the limitations and risks of chemical recycling, states and advocacy groups have pushed for varied policy interventions:
- State Moratoriums and Bans: Some states, such as Rhode Island, have introduced bills to ban or restrict new high-heat waste processing facilities.
- Definitional Limits: Certain legislatures have moved to exclude chemical recycling from official recycling definitions, reducing incentives for its deployment.
- Guardrails and Oversight: Requiring cumulative impact analyses, expanded public participation, rigorous reporting, and transparency regarding emissions and waste.
- Zero-Waste Frameworks: Initiatives like NCEL’s Zero Waste Policy Roadmap aim for a comprehensive approach, prioritizing plastic reduction, product redesign, and reuse over downstream recycling technologies that incur environmental harm.
Debate: Industry Claims vs. Environmental Evidence
| Industry Argument | Environmental Counterpoint |
|---|---|
| Chemical recycling enables circularity, turning plastics back into new products infinitely. | Most output is burned as fuel or used for low-value feedstock, not new consumer plastics; the process cannot close the production–waste loop. |
| Chemical recycling addresses plastics deemed unrecyclable by mechanical means. | High contamination, toxic additives, and low-quality outputs limit substitution for virgin plastics or sensitive applications. |
| Facilities provide economic benefits and jobs to communities where they’re built. | Facilities frequently site in environmental justice communities, imposing disproportionate pollution and health risks. |
| With scale-up, chemical recycling could significantly reduce landfill waste. | Even under optimistic scenarios, chemical recycling is unlikely to process more than a few percent of total waste, and does not address ongoing overproduction. |
Toward Sustainable Solutions: What’s Next?
The NRDC and allied organizations repeatedly emphasize that a lasting solution must address plastic overproduction at the source, prioritizing:
- Reducing virgin plastic production through legislation and incentives
- Promoting reusables and product redesign for durability
- Supporting proven mechanical recycling for clean and single-polymer streams
- Ensuring environmental justice in environmental permitting and policy choices
In this framework, so-called “advanced” recycling is not seen as a substitute for upstream interventions, but rather, as another risky end-of-pipe technology prone to burdening already-vulnerable populations and ecosystems.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Chemical Recycling
Q: What is chemical recycling, and how is it different from mechanical recycling?
A: Chemical recycling encompasses processes that break down plastics using heat, chemicals, or solvents to create fuel or chemical feedstocks. Mechanical recycling physically processes plastics without changing their chemical structure, typically into lower-value products and not for fuel production.
Q: Does chemical recycling really reduce plastic pollution?
A: Evidence suggests chemical recycling processes very little of total U.S. plastic waste—about 1.1%. Most outputs are not new plastics but fuel or feedstock, offering little actual reduction in plastic pollution.
Q: Are chemical recycling plants safe?
A: Reports document hazardous emissions, risks of fire and explosion, and toxic waste generation. Plants are disproportionately located in low-income and marginalized communities, raising additional safety and justice concerns.
Q: Can chemical recycling be used for food-grade plastic?
A: Many chemical recycling outputs contain legacy chemical additives or contaminants, often making them unsuitable for food-contact applications or sensitive uses.
Q: What is the main alternative to chemical recycling?
A: Upstream solutions—reducing plastic production, redesigning for reusability, and fortifying mechanical recycling—offer more robust and sustainable ways to curb plastic pollution.
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